Deck Information

Our Frozen Throne Midrange Paladin deck list guide will teach you how to pilot this popular deck! Our guide features mulligan, play, and card replacement strategies!

Introduction

Midrange Paladin is one of the most classic Hearthstone decks, but the Murloc twist is new from Un’Goro. The deck used to be very strong, but then it lost most of its power with the 2016 Standard rotation, because Paladin was left with almost no early game. Good deck builders have figured out that the bad early game can be patched up with the Murloc package, while the deck’s powerful mid/late game stays intact.

This Murloc list can be sometimes referred to as aggressive, but it’s ultimately just a fast version of Midrange. If Midrange Hunter is considered a Midrange deck, than this should definitely fall into that category. It has also slowed down a bit with the addition of cards like Bonemare.

The Knights of the Frozen Throne is here and Midrange Murloc Paladin has some new toys at its disposal. If you are looking to counter all of those pesky Druids running around then this might be the deck you are looking to play!

New Frozen Throne Additions

Righteous Protector is an extremely strong early game minion that can fight for the board are is great in combination with Rallying Blade. It is an obvious improvement on the well-known 1/1 Divine Shield minion Argent Squire.

Bonemare might be the most surprising card to come out Knights of the Frozen Throne so far. It has super value for a common that not only buffs one of your minions, it also gives it Taunt. This card reminds me of Spikeridged Steed which you also get to play in this deck.

The final card being added to this Midrange Paladin build is The Lich King(it doesn’t appear in all versions of the deck)! He honestly kind of reminds me of Dr. Boom where he can just be automatically slotted into most Midrange and Control style decks. He has great stats, can stop your opponent’s momentum, and gives you one of eight different powerful cards at the end of your turn. The card is also very reminiscent of Ysera because of the unique cards it produces.

Frozen Throne (KFT) Midrange Murloc Paladin Mulligan Strategy & Guide

I’ll divide the mulligan section into two – against fast decks and against slow decks. Fast decks are generally the Aggro decks (e.g. Pirate Warrior) or high tempo Midrange decks (e.g. Midrange Hunter). Slow decks are slower Midrange and Control decks.

Vs Fast Decks

Vilefin Inquisitor – It might be the best 1-drop in the Aggro matchups because of its statline – 1/3 is great at killing 1 health minions. It adds Murloc tribe to your Hero Power, meaning that it will synergize with all the Murloc cards you play.

Murloc Tidecaller – Another 1-drop, you really want to open with a 1-drop against Aggro, so you obviously keep it. It’s weak by itself (only 1/2), but it can snowball out of control if you play a lot of Murlocs.

Rockpool Hunter – It’s best follow up to the 1-drop Murlocs. Pretty straightforward, if you hit the buff, it’s amazing. But even if you don’t, it’s something you can drop on turn 2 at least.

Hydrologist – Alternative 2-drop. It’s weaker than Rockpool Hunter stat-wise, but you can pick some early Secret that can make a difference. Better than Hero Powering on turn 2.

Lower Priority (keep only if certain conditions are met):

Murloc Warleader – This card is either amazing or useless. Keep it only if you have other small Murlocs in your starting hand, especially Vilefin Inquisitor. It’s really bad by itself, but it gets much better if you can start buffing your stuff.

Rallying Blade – While it’s good removal, you’d prefer not to have to use your face too much to remove minions against aggressive decks. Best kept with Righteous Protector in hand.

Vs Slow Decks

Higher Priority (keep every time):

Vilefin Inquisitor – You really want to change that Hero Power and there is no better time than doing it right away, on curve.

Murloc Tidecaller – High priority removal target for your opponent. If he can’t clear it, it will simply kill him around turn 4 or 5 if you keep pumping out the Murlocs.

Rockpool Hunter or Hydrologist – You want to curve out, but you don’t need multiple 2-drops. If you can choose, Rockpool Hunter should be better on turn 2 if you have a turn 1 Murloc and Hydrologist should be better if you don’t.

Lower Priority (keep only if certain conditions are met):

Righteous Protector – Not as good against Control decks, but can still be good in some matchups. You want to be working on snowballing your Murlocs and this doesn’t help with that.

Stonehill Defender – Gets great value in Paladin, but this deck should be playing the beatdown against Control decks and this is a slow card.

Murloc Warleader – With other early game Murlocs, you don’t want to keep it by itself, because it’s just a 3/3 for 3 if you don’t hit the buff value. 1-drop into turn 2 Rockpool into turn 3 Warleader is an amazing curve, but turn 1 pass, turn 2 Hero Power and turn 3 Warleader is one of the worst curves you can have.

Gentle Megasaur – Similarly to Warleader. Keep if you have other early Murlocs, especially Vilefin Inquisitior, don’t keep if you don’t.

Rallying Blade – Good for taking out early minions, and synergizing with Righteous Protector, but you’d rather be expanding your board in the early game against slower decks.

Frozen Throne (KFT) Midrange Murloc Paladin Win Rates

Frozen Throne (KFT) Midrange Murloc Paladin Play Strategy

Midrange Murloc Paladin is a deck that combines the best from both worlds and that’s why playing it might be tricky sometimes. You need to learn how to play into your hand in the best way. Sometimes you want to try to rush your opponent down with the early Murlocs, other times you want to play a slow, Control, value-oriented game and sometimes you can switch the play styles in between depending on the situation and the cards you draw.

One of the best things about this deck is that you can adapt quite well to the matchup and to the situation. You can play a slow game and when the time comes, flood the board with Murlocs, Adapt all of them and push for 2-turn lethal. On the other hand, if your early game rush plan fails, it doesn’t automatically mean that you lose the game. You have tons of value tools in your deck and ways to go for the longer game even if your initial plan didn’t work out.

Vs Aggro

If you’re playing a slower deck vs Aggro, there is always one plan – survive. This deck has some nice early game plays and it runs quite a lot of defensive tools, and so Aggro matchups aren’t that bad at all. Taking board control is most important. If you survive until the mid game with a decent life total, there is almost no way you lose. Don’t think about racing an Aggro deck, even if you get the perfect aggressive start it simply makes no sense.

Early game tempo is key. Try to play some minion every turn, even if it’s not optimal. Avoid your Hero Power unless you have nothing else to play. Murloc Warleder on 3 with no other Murlocs on the board? Sure, if you can’t do anything else. You just want to curve out, if you survive until your turn 6 you should probably win from that point.

This deck is far more reliant on having a board and using your minions to keep your opponent in check.

Try to stick a minion on the board going into turn 6. With 2x Spikeridged Steed in the deck, it’s very likely that you will draw at least one. And the card is an Aggro killer. Even a simple 1/1 turns into 3/7 Taunt, which spawns a 2/6 Taunt. Every 6+ mana play either has a Taunt or heals you. So once you get to turn 6, you nearly can’t lose. So that’s your goal, try to survive at any cost. You don’t have to be ahead by a lot, you just need to not fall behind so much that even those things won’t get you back.

When it comes to the Discover picks, those shouldn’t be very hard.

Hydrologist – You pick Noble Sacrifice whenever you can. While early it usually trades for a 1/1, later in the game it can block a Charge minion, a big weapon hit etc. Alternatively, you can pick Getaway Kodo and play it before dropping a Taunt. Taunt needs to die, so it will bounce back to your hand. Repentance might be a good play before your opponent’s turn 5 if they run a deck playing Bittertide Hydra.

Stonehill Defender – You have a selection of many great Taunts like Wickerflame Burnbristle & Tirion Fordring. Your choice is very much determined based on how your curve looks and how much pressure you are under. Wickerflame is the right choice if you need to fill your curve or you are under pressure. Tirion is the better long term pick.

Vs Control

While in Aggro matchups you always take the role of a Control player, in slow matchups you often want to be the Beatdown. That’s your initial game plan, until it fails at least. Let’s say that you play against Taunt Warrior and get a fast, Murloc-heavy start with Murlocs on 1, 2, 3 and then Gentle Megasaur. If your opponent didn’t counter your start, it might be worth to start pushing and let’s say pick +3 Attack or Windfury for the Murlocs, instead of Health or Divine Shield. Your board dies to Brawl one way or the other, but with the more aggressive approach, you might be able to kill the opponent before he reacts. Of course, there is some merit to the defensive options too, like playing against damage AoEs so your minions survive longer, or being able to trade more easily while still keeping your Murlocs alive. But that’s the point – knowing which ones to pick depending on the situation might be one of the most important decisions when playing this deck.

But let’s be honest, you will rarely win games by just rushing the opponent down. What about the rest, the majority of the matches? Well, you play a more classic Midrange style. You want to be on the board, be in control of the game, play proactively, dictate the trades and the pace of the game. It can really get you far. Forcing your opponent into answering might lead to him having to use inefficient answers. Remember that you still don’t want to engage in a 100% value war, because if you take the games to fatigue, an average Control deck will win. You want to slowly, but steadily push for damage and then close up the game with a big play like board of Murlocs into Gentle Megasaur, Sunkeeper Tarim on 3-4 small minions or even Tirion Fordring. The last one is incredibly valuable, 5/3 Ashbringer is 15 damage over 3 turns and that’s A LOT.

Baiting AoEs is important. The best case scenario is when you set up a board that’s pretty scary, but you won’t lose too much when it gets AoE’d. For example, having a bunch of 1/1 Tokens and playing Warleader + Gentle Megasaur. It will probably ask for an AoE, but you can easily refill after. Spikeridged Steed is good anti-AoE protection. Not only it gives your minion lots of health, which makes it harder to AoE, but if your opponent plays some board wipe, you’re still left with a 2/6 on your next turn.

Sunkeeper Tarim is an amazing tool for surprise burst damage turns. Midrange Paladin was never a bursty deck and people rarely play around huge burst turns, which you can use to your advantage. Tarim is a great swing card. Let’s say that your opponent is at 15 and just played a big Taunt. Now if you have 5 small minions on the board and a weapon, you can actually kill them. But Tarim is much more flexible than that. You can use it when your opponent plays a single big threat to kill it easily. You can use it when you have a few minions and you want to trade up. You can also use it defensively, against 2-3 midrange minions, making them all less scary.

Try to play The Curator as soon as possible, even on curve. The more you wait, the lower the chance of you drawing 3 cards will be. While drawing a Murloc will nearly always happen, the list only plays 2 Beasts, making those easy to draw before you drop The Curator. The card is always good, even when drawing 1 it’s okay, but it’s always better to draw 2 than 1.

Discover cards are the best way to gain value in slow matchups. Here is what you should be picking:

Hydrologist – Getaway Kodo is the best pick in most of the slow matchups, because you might be able to bounce some high value cards and replay them. But other than that, Repentance is good in the late game, especially if your opponent is out of “tempo plays” and has only big stuff left in his hand. Redemption can be situationally good, if you play it with only Tirion on the board. It gives you a 1 mana 6/1 With Divine Shield and Taunt. It’s very likely that it survives for another hit and then he refreshes your weapon. Great value.

Stonehill Defender – You are looking for better value against slower decks. Tirion is the obvious choice in most cases, but if you see potential for setting up a wide board then Sunkeeper Tarim might be the better choice.

General Tips

Sunkeeper Tarim can be tricky to use from time to time. First, you want to make all the good trades you can make before playing it. For example, if you have a 1/3 and your opponent has a 2/1, there is no point in playing Tarim first – you can trade those minions, still have a 1/1 and then turn it into a 3/3. Then you want to play all the small minions you can, like Hero Power, Vilefin Inquisitor or Hydrologist. It’s basically a free buff if you play them before dropping Tarim. Then you play your Tarim and make rest of the trades.

A few 1/1 Murloc tokens can turn into a deadly weapon in the right scenario. Sunkeeper Tarim or Murloc Warleader + Gentle Megasaur on a bunch of 1/1’s that are ready to attack can work really well. They’re only 1/1’s, but first buffing them to 3 Attack and then giving them either +3 Attack or Windfury means that each of those small guys deals 6 damage instead of the 1 it was supposed to. You can get some lethals you wouldn’t think about with this kind of combo. Gentle Megasaur is great on your small Murlocs in general. Giving them Poisonous means that you can make great trades. Giving them Deathrattle: Spawn 2x 1/1 makes your board more AoE-proof. Remember that if you’re looking for a specific Adapt option, you have a 3/10 chance to get it.

Frozen Throne (KFT) Midrange Murloc Paladin Card Substitutions

Sadly, Paladin lists these days are pretty expensive. If you’re aiming at the slower Paladin deck, you need to have a deep pocket or a lot of luck with pack openings. This deck runs 4 Legendaries (non-adventure) and multiple Epic cards and I have to say that most of them is important for the deck to function correctly. I’ll try my best to give as much replacements as I can, but it might be a bit hard this time around.

Sunkeeper Tarim and Tirion Fordring are extremely powerful and if you have any thoughts of playing Paladin I would recommend crafting both (especially Tirion).

Your Murloc-related Epics: Vilefin Inquisitor, Murloc Warleader and Gentle Megasaur can’t be replaced. If you want to run a Murloc list, you just have to play them. If you don’t own them and don’t want to craft them, you can run a non-Murloc Midrange Paladin instead.

The Curator is from Karazhan and if you don’t have it, there is – once again – no direct replacement for them. It’s good in the slower list, as it’s a great value tool. But if you don’t have it, you can use any of the Legendary replacements or use the Aggro version of the deck instead.

While I agree there’s no direct replacement, you can still swap it out for something like Corpsetaker, Wickeerflame Burnbristle, or Spellbreaker. The Lich King also sometimes sees play in these decks. I don’t think Finja make or breaks the deck.

This is one of the most costly decks in the meta and people are trying to build it on a budget. That just doesn’t add up. You’ll make the deck so subpar that you might as well play a good budget deck like Evolve Shaman or Token Druid. Also, you can buy adventures with gold. Just save up. The Rag event should have made that easy. I got over 1000 gold from it without really trying.

That aside, from the deck list I’ve seen, the real debate is which tech is better. The value of Stonehill Defender or the power of Corpsetaker. I’ve stuck with Stonehill so far because that extra taunt either buys me time or wins me the game (like getting an extra Tarim or Tirion). I’d like to hear what other have found in their testing as I’ve open to running either.

Hey Noob. N’zoth pally wasn’t normal at all for ranks 10 and below , probably your unlucky day? Since this is midrange you would have to be the aggressor as you can’t win the value game. Hunter is one of the best matchups as you have plenty of tools to survive till ragnaros and primodial drake which would mean instant concede for the hunter. Jade druid for me till rank 2 was a 50-50 as you have tools to sustain enough value to a certain point against the,, but ultimately lose on the value game. Best advise is to be the aggressor and look for most value with your murloc synergies as druid does not have good board clear.

It’s normal, this deck is very shitty. You just can’t win against other hard control decks or value decks like priest. It’s super hard against burnmage too. Rogue quest is an impossible matchup too unless you have the perfect murloc hand. Against chaman it’s 50 % or less and maybe a bit more with jade Druid. Aggro decks are the most easy to counter.
But this decklist is fucked up. People often play a finja too or eater of secrets.
I just can’t win with this deck too, especially above rank 10.

Hey, MrMeme. Pyromancer is only viable with two qualities and a more control-midrange meta. As far as my rank climb of rank 3 and onwards, there was no need for a second equality. However, if you really want board clear, you can take out the golakka crawler and add a wild pyromancer. I do not advise this and even go as far to say that you should have two crawlers and only one equality because pirates are in warrior, druid, rogues, and even shaman. But as always you should adapt to the meta to your own accordance.

weird how much the matchups differ from my experience. I played it from 5 to legend and aggro druid was my 2nd best matchup (after silence priest). Yet here it’s listed as a terrible matchup. Jade druid was much tougher for me. Fast Paladin is the hardest matchup for this list.

Definitely Tirion if you don’t want to go full aggro (I have seen a list with full aggro and tarim as finisher). Tirion is classic and he is just an amazing card (imo one of the best legendaries in the game) and will stick around for more than a year. Tarim is a great card, too, but I would start with classic legendaries.

Replace “Curator” and “Drake” with VolcanosaurX2 and I quickly hit Rank 2. Volcano is way better for late game play. Use Divine Shield, “Can’t be hit by spells”, and/or Stealth. Or “taunt” if you’re in a dangerous low Hero HP situation.

Thanks, I’ll definitely take that into account when updating the guide next time!

Crabs, just like any other tech cards, can really fall out of favor very quickly if the deck they target disappears from the meta. Maybe I’ll just not include those “hate” cards in the deck list and instead write about them in Card Substitutions section.

But then again, some people don’t really read that far into the guide and they might miss it…

This deck works the best for me at the beginning of this season .
Removed golakka for second drake .
Funny, I think drake wan me more games vs aggro and pirates than golakka did .
It also pretty guarantees 3 draws from curator which is really good value .

Loving the deck! been playing it a fair bit, its rate is 18-5 atm which by fair the best ive ever played. I removed the Golakka Crawler for Finga though, seems to work well.
– 1 Golakka Crawler, +1 Finga

First time rank 5 because of this deck, thanks. Been playing hs for more than a year never got beyond rank 9. Love this deck because of its comeback mechanic against aggro. Final boss before rank 5 was a pirate warrior and i got 2 tarims and a bristle and won the game. I I really love this deck.

Wickerflame is good against aggro, especially when you need to gain some health. It doesn’t really do much against control, because they can easily handle a 2/2 with divine shield. Using Stonehill Defender, you can pick the best taunt minion for the situation. In control matches or even aggro matches that have gotten to turn 10, it’s great to be able to get another Tirion or Sunkeeper Tarim.

me: only play is noble sac and warleader or gentlemegasuar.. playing two cards for more presence option over singular megasuar

• swashburgler catches noble Sac, swashburgler into warleader followed by last hero power pwr charge, hit with 1/2 razor lasher, my health is now 19 he drops sherizhan (must be a miracle, few tempo rogue use that card)

me: megasaur, only play I can make, not able to do anything with equals, rag, spikeridge steed

I mean, you have a one game sample size when your opponent had perfect answers to your plays AND Stealth on Gadgetzan Auctioneer (it never happened to me so far in this expansion, because Xaril is pretty uncommon).

Miracle Rogue does well against this deck, it’s one of the best “counters”, but to be fair, the matchup isn’t as bad as it might seem. It’s probably 40/60 in Rogue’s favor, it’s far from unwinnable.

normally you can attribute patterns to bad plays, and stats back it up, but looking at the replays of multiple games with various builds.. it’s seriously like a sign, I mean I had to post that game, it was the most redic after trying yet another build. I’ll revist pally again later… been having good fun with mage and it’s done well in tourney.

Well I don’t know man. It seems to me that you are expecting above %70 winrate against all classes with same deck. I have %50-55ish winrate against both rogue decks and it’s incredibly good against warrior and hunter decks. I’m not sure about mage, I haven’t played against them too often, but worst case scenario is adding an eater of secrets. Priest is kinda annoying, or at least for me. I hate Elise the Trailblazer. Shaman and Warlock are fine and I haven’t lost a mirror match yet. This deck certainly have potential.

oh hey, thanks for the reply.. yea I have since put together a very solid Pally deck.. thing works well… of course there are some bad match ups, checking my stats it’s 58% winrate with 35 games. it has had 6 tweeks(versions) since the original deck.

and I just checkd this list… amazing to find I have come back to a very similar list on my own, I’ve tried several things out and feel confident in saying, the shell of this deck is solid. Looking at the list there’s only two card changes, and I’ve had at one point as many as 6 different cards.

Trump made a deck where he runs it with finja. He explains that finja/steed is great synergy. Also, even if you lose your second hydrologist and/or rockpool, you’re still thinning out your deck for the important stuff and have board presence for sunkeeper/gentle megasaur

Ragnaros can be easily replaced with heal spells like lay on hands/forbidden healing or a second ivory knight. The deck might suffer in higher ranks without sunkeeper only cuz he’s such a powerful card (I find streamers pick a second one of him from stonehill a lot) I think you’ll be fine with any strong taunt. Drake more than likely for curator synergy, I’ve won many games cuz I played curator, drake, drake turn 7, 8 and 9 and the opponent ran out of answers.

Great work, a complete guide from every point of view; I ran this list from 15th to the rank legend and now I’m on 800. I am very happy to know that the haters are weeping for having despised the paladin before the launch of un goro ;-). Ending my list play pinja and bronin instead of golakka and a spikeridged, bronin is more versatile against general aggro match up ex huntard or token dudu, pinja give u 2 free murloc on the board for combos , presence , buff or simply to pull out 2 potential death draw on the late game.